• The grandparent scam: A caller asks an elderly person to send bail money because he’s been arrested and jailed in another country.

More than a third of complaints filed in 2013 involved telephone scams – up 25 percent over the previous year, Bennett said in a news release, citing a National Consumers League report. Many scammers, he said, use software or automated dialers to mask their identities.

He advised local residents to treat each call with suspicion and to avoid giving out personal information unless they initiated the call.